“When’s your birthday?” I asked suddenly.

Jack looked up from his book,

“What?”
“Your birthday. When is it?”
“You interrupted my research which will hopefully give us some answers to fixing Hell and stopping the second apocalypse… To ask me when my birthday is?”
“Damn it Jack, just tell me!” I laughed.
“It’s um…”
“You forgot your own birthday?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Hey when you’re as old as I am and haven’t celebrated it in a long time, you forget things now shut up. It’s June… June… eighteenth! June eighteenth.”
“It’s June fifteenth!” I exclaimed.
“Okay?”
“We have to do something.”
“Alex it’s my…Wait what year is it?”
“Two thousand twenty-one.” I replied.
“Okay so it’s my three hundred ninety-seventh birthday. I’ve had a lot of these. It’s not a new concept to me.”
“Okay well you know what? I’m going to do something. I’m not quite sure what, but I am and you are just going to have to deal with it.”
“Okay hun, whatever you say.” He laughed.

---

“So what should I do for him?” I asked Eliza.
“Well obviously you can’t buy him anything seeing as you have no money and he basically has everything he could want. What if you made him something?”
“Liza, I can’t see me drawing him a picture with glitter and crayons.”
“No I meant like a playlist of love songs or something.” She laughed.
“Um he isn’t my boyfriend.” I giggled.
“Oh come on he basically is.” She rolled her eyes and I shrugged.
“Okay a playlist huh?”
“Yeah!”

A playlist seemed right. After all, he was the one who got me into music in the first place.

“Okay.”

---

I put together a playlist of songs which reminded me of him. it consisted of:
1. No. 1 Party Anthem - Arctic Monkeys
2. Skinny Love - Birdy
4. I’m A Mess - Ed Sheeran
5. Echo - Jason Walker
6. Angels - Mayday Parade
7. Far Too Young To Die - Panic! At The Disco
8. Fun - Troye Sivan
9. We Fall Apart - We As Human

They were songs that related to both, how I felt towards him, and also what we were going through.

I noticed how the songs on the list, weren’t exactly happy. I suppose thats cause we weren’t exactly happy.

Our relationship was toxic. It was based on abuse, lies, screaming, fighting, and pain. Anyone in their right mind would’ve gotten out of it in a heartbeat. But we weren’t in our right minds. We were a tormented king of hell and an angel who had spend his whole life looking over his shoulder. How could we be? Yet somehow when life dealt us another blow, we managed to staple ourselves back together, but I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take before there was nothing left to desperately clutch in place.

I pushed those thoughts away as I went upstairs. A part of me thought I should make him dinner, but I wasn’t exactly the cooking type. Besides, I don’t even know how.

I wandered into the library and scanned the shelves. I couldn’t read, almost no slaves could, but just being with the books was soothing. I knew basic words and numbers, but not much else. I sighed happily at the books, knowing that even though I couldn’t read them, they held so many stories. I stood up on my tiptoes and reached for one on the highest shelf. The cover was black with a stream of smoke in the center, like when you blow out a candle. It’s title was at the bottom in white font surrounded by a thin red rectangle. I mindlessly slouched in one of the big leather chairs that you just sunk right into and opened the cover. Like I said, I couldn’t read, but the words were pretty. I heard Jack walking down the hall, then stopping at the doorway to the library.

“I’ve never seen you in here before.” He remarked, stepping in.
“I come here sometimes. I like the books.” I replied.
“You have any favorites?” He asked, looking down a shelf.
“Um,” I shifted nervously, “I-I can’t really read them. I just…I don’t know…Like them?” My tone towards the end of the sentence sounded more like a question than a statement.
“You can’t read?” He asked, looking surprised.

I was confused as to why he didn’t know this before I remembered that he typically socializes with the upper class. A high class demon will usually teach their slave how to read.

“I-I can read a few basic words and numbers and stuff.”
“But what about song titles?” He asked.
“Usually I just go by the track number until I can figure it out since they normally say the title in the song.” I reply.

He sat in the chair next to me and took the book, flipping back to the cover.

“See this?” He asked, pointing to the words in the box.

I nodded.

“That’s the title. It says “looking for alaska”.” He proceeded to show me which letters made which sounds.
“I know it seems like it should be pronounced, ‘loooking’, but for some reason it’s pronounced ‘luhking.”
“Why?” I asked.
“No idea.” He shrugged.
“No, I mean why are you teaching me this?” I asked.
“Because reading is something everyone should be able to do.”
“Don’t you want to keep us dumb?” I asked, after all, that’s why slaves aren’t allowed to have an education. Keep us stupid, that way we can’t fight back.
“Alex just shut up and learn.” He sighed before going to the desk to get paper and pencil.
“Since you can’t read, I’m assuming you can’t write either. Writing seems hard, but it’s basically drawing.”

He wrote the alphabet out and told me to copy each of the letters as he reminded me which ones they were and what sounds they made. And surprisingly he calm and encouraging, every time I messed up, he’d say things like “You’ll get it.” gently as he re-instructed.

---

The next day, around eight at night, I took my phone and walked into Jack’s room (you could call it ‘our’ room since I almost never slept in mine). He was sat at his desk typing what looked to be an e-mail to someone.

“What is it Lex?” He asked before I’d even alerted him of my presence.
“A-are you busy?” I stuttered, suddenly feeling very nervous.
“Never to busy for you.” He replied, shutting his laptop.
“Um okay so it’s your birthday right?” I asked, not sure I knew why I was asking.

It was June eighteenth. Why wouldn’t it be his birthday?

“Yes.” He replied with a laugh.
“O-okay well I m-made you a um. A playlist?” I stumbled over my words and ended it like a question.

I am so stupid.

“Come here.” He said, standing up and taking my hand, leading me over to the bed.

We lay down with my head resting on his shoulder as I hit play on my phone and the music came from it’s speakers. Some of the lyrics jumped out at me and reminded me why I put them on the list.

While listening to it, Jack kissed the top of my head and whispered,

“I love it.”

Notes

Title cred: Lane Boy - Twenty one pilots

Okay I'm reeeaaaalllllly sorry about not updating. What happened was I went to the beach for a week with my friend and I intended on writing while I was there but I hit a block and didn't know what I was doing but now I have an idea and I'm gonna run with it okay so yeah sorry